COLLEGE PROFILE/WATERFORD IT: Waterford IT Waterford IT has been going from strength to strength since it was upgraded in1997. Anne Byrne reports

There's a friendly dynamism about Waterford IT. Its stunning new library is visually linked to the old college via a sculpture by artist and staff member John O'Connor.

"The space occupied by the sculpture can also be accessed by staff or students - they can walk through the sculpture and become part of it," according to O'Connor. The ugly façade of the old RTC building has been successfully refurbished (so much so that it looks new) and there are plans to transform the car park into a plaza.

The original 35-acre campus is now one of four sites occupied by the college. There are also seven acres housing the humanities in College Street, one acre at Newgate and some space in an industrial park. In the offing are a new school of nursing to house 460 undergraduate nursing students, a research, development and innovation campus with a sports village, an IT building and a new tourism and leisure building. Unusually for an institute of technology, the college has a 67-bedroom residence on campus and is, through a separate company structure, building more bedrooms.

Waterford IT conferred its own certificates and diploma on 1,200 graduates last autumn. This marks a first for the college, making it only one of four ITs (former RTCs) that can now award their own sub-degree qualifications.

College director Professor Kieran Byrne says: "It's a recognition of our reputation. With reputation comes autonomy. There's a growing sense in which we now enjoy autonomy. We intend to extend that in the immediate future." In concrete terms, this means the college will look for degree-awarding powers.

While the main business of Waterford IT is education and training at all levels from apprenticeship and CERT courses, through certificate, diploma and degree to postgraduate level, it has an ongoing programme of externally funded applied research with money coming from industry, the EU and Enterprise Ireland. Last December, the college received a major boost to its research status when it attained €5 million under the Higher Education Authority's PRTLI programme.

The college press release boasted: "The award represents a major breakthrough for the institute, as HEA research funding has been traditionally dominated by the university sector. Indeed, this award to WIT is the largest ever to an Institute of Technology and a first for WIT." None of the former RTCs received any funding under the first round of Science Foundation Ireland, the other major State funding mechanism for research.

Byrne, who was appointed in May last year, intends to extend the college's research remit, at the same time building up higher numbers of postgraduates, who only account for 2 per cent of the college's third-level student population at present.

While most people would tend to associate Waterford IT with science, technology and computing, the college offers a strong arts programme, with humanities, music, art, design, and a college choir and orchestra. Indeed, there are plans to begin a four-year ab-initio theology degree. The college has obtained approval from HETAC, but has yet to secure funding from the Department of Education.

Byrne says he is "a great believer in the ladder. Our purpose is to move as many students as possible through this route." Registrar Paddy Downey adds that, while Waterford IT came first in a league table of ITs for its retention rates, there is no room for complacency. At present, about 70 per cent of students spend three to four years in the college. About 10 per cent of full-time students were non-standard applicants, coming through routes such as Post Leaving Certificate courses or applying on the basis of mature years. In December 2000, the college established the Centre for Helping Access Retention and Teaching. Support systems such as mentoring have been put in place. It also promotes direct access programmes.

Students' Union president Fintan O'Connor is in no doubt of the value of the Waterford IT experience. An accountancy graduate, he says, "Waterford IT is a great place to go. There's a good atmosphere around the college. Students who are shy or away from home from the first time can join in lots of sports and social activities." For those who excel at sport, there are six scholarships, each worth £1,500, but sports are open to everyone, at whatever level, says O'Connor.

As well as the full-time student population, Waterford IT caters for a substantial number of part-time students. Figures from the department of adult and continuing education show 4,528 students (869 humanities, 874 business, 1,614 science and computing, 492 engineering, 120 community education, 559 literacy tutors and organisers) plus 544 attending the music school in the evening.

As to the future? Byrne says he is building on a solid foundation. "This organisation was exceptionally well led. It has always been very inclusive, clearsighted, and decisive." He wants to "build an organisation to be a higher education institute of substance", but shies away from the university question, saying it's a matter for the policy makers.

The campaign for a university for Waterford dates from 1977. Some 20 years later, in 1997, it received a boost when the minister, Niamh Bhreatnach, announced that the college would be upgraded to an institute of technology.

While welcomed in Waterford, this decision caused uproar elsewhere, notably in Cork.

"At the end of a process that had begun with a proposal to bring Waterford RTC to a status equivalent to DIT - the upshot was that each RTC had had a change of name, but the Waterford college had not been upgraded vis-à-vis the others," writes Dr Tony White in his book, Investing in People (Higher Education in Ireland 1960-2000). White concludes that the Limerick claim took 30 years to achieve a university.

"One suspects that, for an outcome like that of Limerick to be achieved, it will require a single-minded individual of the calibre of Dr Edward Walsh, who is prepared to combine a drive for a university in the south-east with a determination that Waterford College should not be tied forever to a national system of institutes of technology."

Could Professor Byrne be the one?